Celebrating movie icons: Michael Caine

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Today classic films and movie icons - from now through Labor Day, we're featuring a series of interviews from our archive with Steven Spielberg, Meryl Streep, Samuel L. Jackson, Dennis Hopper, Clint Eastwood, Jodie Foster, Molly Ringwald and more. Later on today's show, we'll hear my interview with Robert Duvall, who played the Corleone family lawyer Tom Hagen in "The Godfather" movies and the macho, surfing-obsessed Colonel Kilgore in "Apocalypse Now."

We'll start with a British actor who was one of the most distinctive voices in movies, Michael Caine. But before we hear his voice, we'll hear from two people imitating his voice. Here's Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon in their 2010 movie "The Trip," competing over who could do the best Michael Caine impression.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE TRIP")

STEVE COOGAN: (As himself) Our broadsheet journalists have described my impressions as stunningly accurate.

ROB BRYDON: (As himself) Well, they're wrong. I've not heard your Michael Caine, but I assume it would be something along the lines of, (impersonating Michael Caine) my name's Michael Caine.

COOGAN: (As himself) That is where you are so wrong.

BRYDON: (As himself) Let's...

COOGAN: (As himself) And you can look at my live video for proof because that's the very thing I don't do.

BRYDON: (As himself) Do...

COOGAN: (As himself) I say that he used to talk like that.

BRYDON: (As himself) Do your Michael Caine.

COOGAN: (As himself) OK. I say, (impersonating Michael Caine) Michael Caine used to talk like this in the 1960s, right? But that has changed. And I say that over the years, Michael's voice has come down several octaves. Let me finish. And all of the cigars and the brandy - don't - let me finish - can now be heard in the back...

BRYDON: (As himself) OK.

COOGAN: (As himself, impersonating Michael Caine) I'm not [expletive] finished - in the back of the voice. And the voice now will - I'm still not finished. The voice...

BRYDON: (As himself) 'Cause you're panicking...

COOGAN: (As himself, impersonating Michael Caine) I've...

BRYDON: (As himself) ...'Cause I'm about to start.

COOGAN: (As himself, impersonating Michael Caine) Because you look like you're about to bloody talk. Let me finish. Right. So Michael Caine's voice now in the "Batman" movies and in "Harry Brown" - I can't go fast because Michael Caine talks very, very slowly.

BRYDON: (As himself) Right. This is how Michael Caine speaks. (Impersonating Michael Caine) Michael Caine speaks to his nose like that. He gets very, very specific. It's very like that. When it gets loudly, it gets very loud, indeed. It gets very specific. It's not quite nasal enough the way you're doing it, all right? You're not doing it the way he speaks. You're not doing it with the kind of - and you don't do the broken voice. But he gets very emotional. But he gets very emotional, indeed. She was only 16 years old. She was only 16. You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off.

(As himself) That's Michael Caine.

GROSS: According to IMDB, Michael Caine has been in over 170 films. He became famous in the '60s in movies like "Alfie," playing a playboy, and "The Ipcress File" as a crook turned secret agent. He won Oscars for his performances in "Hannah And Her Sisters" and "The Cider House Rules" and starred in "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," "Mona Lisa," "Educating Rita," "Dressed To Kill," and was Batman's butler in the "Dark Knight" films. Caine retired from acting last year at the age of 90.

I spoke with him in 1992 after the publication of his autobiography, "What's It All About?" He wrote about his birth in the charity ward of a hospital, coming of age in a working-class neighborhood and his rise as a movie star. Caine has said that an actor's eyes are his most important asset. An actor's voice is the second most important asset. I asked Caine how he realized his own voice was an asset.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

MICHAEL CAINE: Well, I realized that when I first went into the theater, my natural voice - having a cockney accent for a start was difficult. But also, it's where the voice is placed, and cockneys naturally talk - I'll try and get up there. It's right up in the throat here. It's rather like John Major, our Prime Minister.

GROSS: (Laughter).

CAINE: He talks like that, and his - and the trick was to bring my voice down to the diaphragm, if you can imagine. If it's right up here in the throat - and then they bring it down a little bit further, like another one of our politicians who talks like that, and it's rather strangulated. But if you're going to boom out in the theater without deafening the people at the front, you've got to be able to project your voice. And my first wife taught me how to do that in about 20 minutes. And that was the most important thing that ever happened to me with my voice, which was it was placed.

And the second thing was that over a period of years, I never went to the normal diction lessons that you had - British actors always spoke terribly like that, and they all spoke exactly the same because they all learned how to speak at RADA, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. And what happened to me is I worked on my own because I was never a trained actor, and I worked on my own voice. So what happened was - is I came out out of it with a voice that was correctly placed by accident and a very, very individual accent. My accent is so individual that people who don't recognize me by sight - the minute I open my mouth, they know who I am.

GROSS: Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, when you decided to work on your accent, what did you do to work on it?

CAINE: Well, I didn't do anything really because I went to - into repertory, and - which means that I'd used to do a play a week for 50 weeks a year, and so I was always playing someone different. And in England, we have a lot of regional accents, lots of class accents. And so I could do almost any accent. So it - what I actually did was I kept my own voice.

What actually altered my voice tremendously was becoming a movie actor in the United States when "Alfie" was released here. The first inkling I got that it was going to be released in America at all - because I'd never been to America when "Alfie" was made, and I didn't expect the film to come over here. But the first inkling I got was they said, you've got to do 125 loops - which means lines of dialogue, which are on a sort of tape loop - to make it more understandable to the American ear. And so I did 125 American loops. And if you actually listen to the American version of "Alfie," it sounds as though I can't do a cockney accent 'cause I...

GROSS: (Laughter).

CAINE: ...I keep getting it wrong. But I mean, it was deliberate. But also, I very quickly realized that it wasn't the rhythm of the voice that worried the Americans. It was the speed. The British speak very, very quickly and very, very - in a very clipped way.

As a matter of fact, I lived in America for a long time. I lived for nine years in Los Angeles. And I had - I remember on one occasion, I had been in America without leaving for about 10 months. I hadn't been back to England. And I was watching a British film on television with everybody talking terribly like the British, clipped way. And I suddenly realized I couldn't understand what anybody was talking about. And I realized the American problem. It's because we cut off the end of words, and we talk terribly, terribly quickly.

GROSS: But did your Cockney accent stand in your way at all when you were first starting to make movies? - 'cause - well, also 'cause England has a much more rigid class system...

CAINE: Sure.

GROSS: ...In a way than America does, although we certainly have a class system here.

CAINE: Yeah. Well, the - you have a class system here, but you can't tell it by people's accents. In England, you can - I can listen to a person, and I'll tell you how much his house costs, how much he earns, what sort of car he drives, after listening to him for three minutes. That's how defined by accent you are. The only drawback with a Cockney accent was nobody, of course, would put you into Shakespeare because, you know, you have to learn how to speak in verse and iambic pentameters and everything. But even that - I did Horatio. I played Horatio to Christopher Plummer's Hamlet on television and got away with it.

But normally, in England, in the theater, when I came into it, there were no leading parts written for anybody in my natural accent. I always had to put on another accent. So in actual fact, from that point of view, it did hold me back a bit for a while.

GROSS: Now, in the movie "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," which was made just a few years ago in the States, you and Steve Martin starred, and you were this really kind of upper-class elegant womanizer who came onto wealthy women and scammed them and took their money, whereas Steve Martin was a real kind of nickel-and- dime scam artist out for the same thing, wealthy women. And you taught him how to really do the more aristocratic version of it. What kind of accent did you use for that?

CAINE: That would be the British upper-middle-class accent. It was always the people - the upper middle class usually have the pretensions of the aristocrat without the class and also the pretensions of the rich without the money. And so what you get is someone with absolutely no substance who is all front. And so you get a voice which is terribly like that, and it's very smooth and very, very slow.

GROSS: We're listening to my 1992 interview with actor Michael Caine. We'll hear more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF GOLDENBOY SONG, "KITTENS OF LUST")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to our classic films and movie icon series and continue my 1992 interview with British actor Michael Caine.

GROSS: Now, another great role that I have to ask you about your voice in was in "Mona Lisa," in which you played a crime boss, a gangster...

CAINE: Yes.

GROSS: ...Who - and Bob Hoskins played somebody who is kind of under you in there. And you were really intimidating him in your scenes in the film. It's a fantastic performance by you. Can you talk about how you used your voice in that? - because you needed to use it in a way that showed real authority and the willingness to intimidate and, if necessary, hurt somebody.

CAINE: Yeah. Authority is shown not only by voice, but by movement, and what it is - first thing in authority is you never move. Only people who are trying to attract your attention with no power, move their hands. If you look at aristocracy and really powerful people, they move very little because everybody is awaiting their every word, wish, or command. And their voice is very, very slow because everybody will wait while they have their thought and wait no matter how long it takes for them to say what they're going to say.

What you have to add in this case, where I played a gangster, which would be menace - and menace would come if you - I mean, I, in that, I had a gangster accent, which is again, a working-class Cockney accent, but there is a sort of cheerful, chirpy working class, sort of hello lads, let's all go down the pub, and all this - you know, that sort of accent for the chirpy Cockney lad, cheerful little soul. But then there's another one, which is it's kind of very drawn out. And it's very flat. And so they will actually say things to you.

I mean, I grew up with gangsters like this, and they will say, I like you. And there's absolutely no emotion in the voice, whatsoever. It's like an icicle. They say, I think you're one of the nicest fellas I've ever met. I really do. I really think you're very nice. So and then they say silly little things. When you know you're in trouble with the Cockney gangster, he'll say something like, well, well, who's been naughty, then?

(LAUGHTER)

CAINE: Now, that question means you're probably going to get kneecapped to the floor (laughter). But it's one of those things of just flattening the voice out. The voice just flattens right out, no matter what you say. It just flattens, flattens.

GROSS: Now, when you say you're in a position of power and authority, you don't move a lot.

CAINE: No.

GROSS: That means you don't blink a lot, too.

CAINE: No. Oh, that's a trick for actors on film that I used and was told - I think the first place I heard it was Marlene Dietrich who said it at first - is that you don't blink. If you blink on camera, it signifies weakness. It's very difficult to do this trick on radio...

(LAUGHTER)

CAINE: ...Without blinking. But if you look in the mirror yourself, look in the mirror yourself, and just stare and start saying things to yourself, you'll see how powerful it is. And if you just blink once in the middle of it, you'll see how it all dissipates. It just dissipates the whole thing. And of course, if you're on a movie screen, you have to remember when you blink, each eyelid is somewhere 2 amd 7 feet wide if you're in a close up.

GROSS: That's a good point.

CAINE: Yeah.

GROSS: Well, how do you learn to not blink? It's hard to not blink. Your eyes start to hurt. You can do it for a little bit, but after a while, it's a real strain.

CAINE: You just walk around. I walked around all my life - when I was a young lad - I wrote about this in the book. When I was a young lad, I found a book in the public library, how to teach yourself film acting. And the first thing it's said in it is, you must not blink. And so I walked around...

GROSS: (Laughter).

CAINE: ...I walked around this sort of working class district of London, which was used to some very rough people, you know, without blinking. And I look like a sort of early serial killer.

GROSS: (Laughter).

CAINE: I'm sure I frightened the life out of people 'cause I used to have long conversations with people and never blink. And I would watch people getting hypnotized. And they would walk away from a quite simple conversation with me, quite flummoxed as to what actually what went on.

GROSS: Here's what I'm wondering, you know, since you learned obviously by making movies, how did you pick up everything that you know now about how to look into a camera or like, where to look when the cameras looking at you? Did you pick that up over years after watching yourself and watching yourself?

CAINE: No, I never watched myself. I'd never see rushes. And I'd only see the finished film once just to see how it turned out and who goofed, including me (laughter). And no, it's - film is listening, reaction, and behavior. That's what film acting is. Shouldn't be called film acting at all because it's not acting. It's something entirely - acting is what you do on stage as far as I'm concerned. And people behave - the only time real people act is if they're showing off or trying to make an impression like a guy with a girl or something. Then they act, and then they're artificial, and we can all see they're artificial because they're acting. But normally, what you do is you listen and you react, and then you behave. And that's all it is.

And I'd - when people said to me, well, what actors did you watch to learn how to act in movies? I say, I didn't. What I watched was documentaries or people on the subway to see how they react to things, because - you'll see actors, like, for instance, making gestures on the phone with no one there. You don't make gestures on the phone with no one there. You think you do, but you don't. And so you get sort of strange things happening like that when you see actors acting. So I never took any notice. The only actors that I ever watched for acting lessons were minimalist actors like Jean Gabin, the French actor, and someone who was remarkably similar to him, which was Spencer Tracy. I always think that Jean Gabin and Spencer Tracy - if you speak French, you'll find they're absolutely indivisible.

GROSS: Now, what about where to look when the camera is looking at you? I mean, you really learned how to work...

CAINE: Yes.

GROSS: ...In front of a camera, and if you didn't spend a lot of time watching yourself, how did you learn that?

CAINE: No, I learned by watching where the camera was. I mean, for instance, you always - if you're going to - the thing is, if you're going to play a part, you're playing a part with another actor and you look in their eyes. And what you do, if you're acting, you suddenly go, well, how do I look into this person's eyes? Now, during your lifetime, you've looked into hundreds of people's eyes every time you speak to someone, but you can't remember how you did it. And what you do is you only look into one eye, because if you look into two eyes, you go cross-eyed. And the one eye you look into is the one that is nearest the camera because that throws the one eye that you're not looking not using straight into the lens. That's how to do that.

GROSS: How did you learn that?

CAINE: I figured it out. I figured it out, how to do it. I figured it out myself, actually. I figured out a lot of stuff myself because you get a feeling in movies when you play someone, the actor should disappear, and people should only see the person. I mean, it's a self-defeating thing in a funny way because half the time people see me and they say, well, he's only playing himself. It's because I've made the actor disappear. And that's where you come down to this thing where you've got behavior, and where you've got the camera - you can come down to the absolute minimum thing to do for the camera to pick up. And that's what's fascinating about film acting, because the camera always finds it.

GROSS: Early in your career, Alfred Hitchcock offered you a role as a sadistic killer in "Frenzy."

CAINE: That's right. Yeah.

GROSS: But you turned that down because - why?

CAINE: Because he was based on - I knew who he was based on. He was based on Neville Heath, who was an extraordinarily early, extraordinarily sadistic British woman killer. And I wouldn't play it. I didn't - I mean, all those years ago - Hitchcock never spoke to me again.

GROSS: Because you turned him down.

CAINE: Yeah, he never - I knew him quite well 'cause he comes from the same part of London as I do, and I knew him quite well. I mean, I wasn't a close friend or anything, and I'd never been to his home, but I always sort of saw him around Universal and restaurants. But I remember I had lunch with him for that film, and I said to him - I said, there's something I got to bring up with you. I said, you said that actors were cattle. And you know the way he talked, he - no, I didn't, he said. I said actors should be treated like cattle. There's another voice. That's a sort of halfway trying to be terribly middle class. And that's a Cockney trying to get it right.

GROSS: (Laughter) And speaking very slowly too.

CAINE: Well, Hitchcock was a terribly powerful person. So everybody listened and waited for him to say anything he liked, except for me. I said, I don't want to do the part, and he never spoke to me again.

GROSS: We're listening to my 1992 interview with Michael Caine. After a break, we'll hear more of that interview and feature my 1996 interview with Robert Duval as we continue our classic films and movie icon series. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONNY ROLLINS' "ALFIE'S THEME DIFFERENTLY")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to the interview I recorded with British actor Michael Caine in 1992, after the publication of his autobiography. His career has spanned decades. And depending on your age, you may know him best from his '60s films like "Alfie" and "The Ipcress File" or the "Dark Knight" Batman films. In this part of our interview, we talked about his early years.

CAINE: I first started to act when I was around 10 in school plays. But of course, I was the first generation, I imagine, at my age - I'm 59. I was about the first generation of actors who the first actors they saw were movie actors, not theater actors.

GROSS: And so that left you with a different kind of role model.

CAINE: Left me with a entirely different role model of how to act and why I wanted to act and what I wanted to act in. I never went - I'd been an amateur actor in theatrical plays in little youth clubs and all that for years before I ever went to see a play in a theater. I'd never seen - I'd done 20 plays in a theater before I'd ever seen a play in a theater.

GROSS: So your ultimate ambition wasn't necessarily to do "Hamlet." It might've been to do crime films or.

CAINE: No. I mean, my heroes were James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart and Spencer Tracy, not John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier, who were the big sort of theater stars when I grew up, in England.

GROSS: I guess that helped, too, in terms of your class, because it would've been hard for you to aspire to be somebody who had this kind of upper-class accent and, you know, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts kind of thing.

CAINE: Absolutely. And there was always a history, in any case - in American movies, you had working class heroes. You rarely had working class heroes in British movies. It was always about the aristocracy. If it was about the war, it was about officers. If it was American about war, it was about enlisted men. And so I always identified more with the United States, with American movies and American actors than I ever did with British ones because I thought that the American actors - and in many cases, I was right - were of the same class as me whereas I absolutely knew from their accents and their demeanor that the British actors I was watching were not of the same class as me at all. And therefore, it negated any ideas that I had of becoming an actor because people like me did not become actors in England.

GROSS: Now, you made 73 films in 30 years.

CAINE: Yeah.

GROSS: And as you say, some people have criticized you for not being discriminating enough in the movies that you chose to make.

CAINE: Yeah.

GROSS: What has your criteria been for deciding what to make?

CAINE: Well, first of all, my criteria was, is nobody asked me to make anything for 30 years, so my first criteria was that they asked me at all.

GROSS: Yeah.

CAINE: You know? And then there came - I then had to learn how to act in films. So I made as many films as possible as fast as possible in order to learn how to do it, because I'd never done any. I didn't have any gradual work up. I was suddenly a leading man. And I was fighting for my life, you know, along with all the other movie stars in the world. And I had to give a performance. So I did a lot of stuff. And then also, my other criteria were - and this is one of the great failings of, what had the people done before? I remember after "Anatomy Of A Murder," Otto Preminger asked me to do a picture. And I thought, here's this great Hollywood director asking me to do a picture, which was a dreadful picture called "Hurry Sundown."

But, I mean, I was so complimented that Otto Preminger had even asked me to do a picture that, I mean, I would've almost done it without reading the script. I mean, I did read the script. I didn't understand it. But, I mean, I knew that Otto - I didn't even understand Otto Preminger because he had a thick German accent. But I was just so complimented that this great Hollywood director had asked me to do this film, I went and did it. You know, people always talk as though - first of all, I was never an American star. So I was never this person sitting like Paul Newman or someone in a room where every new great script that came out came to me first. I was a foreign actor, and I was never offered the great American parts because I wasn't a great American actor. You know, I was a British actor.

And so eventually I had to make a career out of what all the American stars didn't want, which was usually flawed people. There's another thing with that if you think in terms of - it still happens. Like, with British actors, we always get flawed people to play. The last three Academy Awards have been British actors - Daniel Day-Lewis, "My Left Foot," a flawed person. Jeremy Irons - he played a Claus von Bulow, a man accused of murdering his wife - a flawed person. Anthony Hopkins, a cannibal - God knows a terribly flawed person.

GROSS: (Laughter).

CAINE: And these are all parts that great American stars, I'm sure, turned down and said, my audience will not allow me to do this.

GROSS: Well let's look at the...

CAINE: And they quite rightfully did so. And so we are - the actors that I've mentioned, we are stars by default in America, in a funny way.

GROSS: Since you've given so much thought to the placement of the camera and the difference between theater and film and so on, I want to ask you about doing love scenes in front of the camera. You don't like doing love scenes very much. That's certainly the impression I get from your book.

CAINE: No because, you see; for a start, if you're a very good actor, you see, and you play a scene - I will play a murderer, you know? And my wife will see the picture, and she'll say, I thought that was brilliant, you know? I mean, you were so convincing as a murderer, right? So I'm a very good actor, and I played a very good part as a murderer. And my wife thinks it's very convincing and it's fabulous, and she's very pleased with me and I'm a very good actor. If I put the same amount of sincerity and skill and dexterity into a love scene, she says to me, was there anything going on between you two?

GROSS: Right.

CAINE: You see? So you can't win, you can't win because if you do it for real, if you're really a good actor, you really look as though you love the woman, you know? And it's very difficult for someone else who loves you to watch that, so I don't like doing them. And also love scenes often obviously involve a lot of kissing and cuddling and sometimes nudity and all that, and I hate it all. It sort of gets in the way of everything. And all the big stars in the old days, they never did any of these scruffy love scenes and rolling about. And if the girl has to take their clothes off, then there's nervous breakdowns and things going on, and it's not worth it. I couldn't do a nude scene. I've never been able to do it. I mean, I've looked as though I was nude, but I never take my shorts off. I always keep my shorts on.

GROSS: You know, it strikes me you are a very close observer of other people's behavior. But doing a love scene, you'd be at something of a disadvantage because it's not like you've sat around watching a lot of couples make love. Do you know what I mean?

CAINE: Yeah.

GROSS: You could say, well, this kind of person makes love this way, and that kind of man makes love that way.

CAINE: Yeah.

GROSS: So you must have to use your imagination more to imagine your character in a romantic situation.

CAINE: Oh, yeah. Sure.

GROSS: They imagine them on the telephone, which you've been able to witness...

CAINE: Yeah.

GROSS: Or imagine them at dinner, which you've been able to witness.

CAINE: Yes, with the love scenes. But I've been imagining love scenes since I was 10.

GROSS: (Laughter).

CAINE: All sorts of different ones. So, I mean, I've got one for every occasion - whatever. I mean, I was always - I was very sort of oversexed (ph) when I was a little boy. And I saw love scenes on the screen, you know, which were kissing, but would very soon - found out what happened when they cut to the seagull or the train going through the tunnel. I figured out the significance of that very quickly.

GROSS: (Laughter).

CAINE: And, of course, right through my teens, I had all these imaginary love scenes worked out. And I managed to get them all out of my system on and off screen over the years.

GROSS: (Laughter) You've described yourself as a very un-neurotic person. Do you think that that's affected your approach to acting?

CAINE: Yeah, I have a very un-neurotic approach to acting. Basically, it's - my style of acting is like - most actors would hold up a picture and say, look at me. I get rid of all that baggage by holding up a mirror and saying, look at you. So what I'm doing is I'm playing you, not me. And so therefore, I can watch from afar. And I watch for the neuroses or the behavior in people that I can reflect off my mirror.

GROSS: You still do that now?

CAINE: Yeah, all the time, all the time. If I've been a success and you see a performance, even if you're a woman, you should say, how does he know that about me? How does he know I would've done that there? How does he know that's the way I would've reacted? It's got nothing to do with the sexes or anything. It just has - it's human behavior is remarkably similar.

GROSS: One more thing. And this gets back to eyes, you know, how the eyes - you've said the eyes are the most important part of an actor.

CAINE: Yeah.

GROSS: You were born with an eye problem called blephar...

CAINE: Yes.

GROSS: ...Which puffs the eyelids?

CAINE: Yes.

GROSS: So did that make you self-conscious about your eyes? Did it make it any more difficult for you?

CAINE: Yeah. In school, they used to call me snake eyes because I have - I sort of have eyes like a cobra. But when I grew up - and sometimes if you're very sleepy, you look like a cod. They used to call me cod's eyes as well until I sort of grew to 6 feet tall, and then nobody called me cods' eyes anymore.

GROSS: (Laughter).

CAINE: But when I got into the movies, it came out as kind of dreamy and sexy, you know, sleepy-looking. They said they could use makeup on them and sort of make them look slightly different. They put a bit of shade, which puts the eyes back further into your head and you get a sort of dreamy quality. So it was - there was a producer once, an old theater producer, who said use the disadvantage, always use the disadvantage. And so I used that. A lot of things work for me like that in my life.

GROSS: What else?

CAINE: Well, I was just thinking, when he said use the disadvantage, what that means is - I was rehearsing - use the difficulty, I mean. Use the difficulty, he used to say. I was rehearsing a play, and there was a scene went on before me and then I had to come in the door. And they rehearsed the scene. And one of the actors had thrown a chair at the other one and it had gone right in front of the door where I came in. So I opened the door, and then rather lamely I said to the producer, who was sitting out in the stalls - I said, well, look, I can't get in. There's a chair in my way. So he said, well, use the difficulty. So I said, what do you mean use the difficulty? He said, well, if it's a drama, pick it up and smash it. If it's a comedy, fall over it.

GROSS: (Laughter).

CAINE: Which was a line for me for life. You know, always try and use the difficulty.

GROSS: Oh, that's great.

CAINE: Yeah.

GROSS: On that note, I want to thank you so much for talking with us.

CAINE: Thank you.

GROSS: Michael Caine recorded in 1992. He retired from acting last year at the age of 90. We'll continue our classic films and movie icon series with a 1996 interview with Robert Duvall. He talked about his roles in "The Godfather" films and in "Apocalypse Now." That's after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF NINO ROTA AND CARLO SAVINA'S "THE PICKUP")

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. Next up on our classic films and movie icons series is an interview from our archive with Robert Duvall recorded in 1996. Duvall made his mark starring in epic movies and intimate dramas. In "The Godfather" films, he played the Corleone family lawyer Tom Hagen. In "Apocalypse Now," he played the macho Colonel Kilgore. In "The Great Santini," he was a rigid marine pilot who imposed a strict discipline on his family. In his Oscar-winning performance in "Tender Mercies," he was a country music singer on the skids, living a quiet life with a widow and her son. He also starred in the Western miniseries "Lonesome Dove." Here's Duvall in a famous scene from "The Godfather." He's traveled to Hollywood to persuade a movie producer to give a starring role to Don Corleone's godson.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE GODFATHER")

ROBERT DUVALL: (As Tom Hagen) I was sent by a friend of Johnny Fontane's. His friend is my client, who'd give his undying friendship to Mr. Woltz, if Mr. Woltz would grant us a small favor.

JOHN MARLEY: (As Jack Woltz) Woltz is listening.

DUVALL: (As Tom Hagen) Give Johnny the part in that new war film you're starting next week.

MARLEY: (As Jack Woltz, laughter) And what favor would your friend grant Mr. Woltz?

DUVALL: (As Tom Hagen) You're going to have some union problems. My client could make them disappear. Also, one of your top stars has just moved from marijuana to heroin.

MARLEY: (As Jack Woltz) Are you trying to muscle me?

DUVALL: (As Tom Hagen) Absolutely not. I told you, it's just for a friend.

MARLEY: (As Jack Woltz) Now, listen to me, you smooth-talking son of a b****. Let me lay it on the line for you and your boss, whoever he is. Johnny Fontane will never get that movie, I don't care how many dago-guinea-wop-greaseball-goombahs come out of the woodwork.

DUVALL: (As Tom Hagen) I'm German Irish.

MARLEY: (As Jack Woltz) Well, let me tell you something, my Kraut Mick friend. I'm going to make so much trouble for you, you won't know what hit you.

DUVALL: (As Tom Hagen) Mr. Woltz, I'm a lawyer. I have not threatened you.

MARLEY: (As Jack Woltz) I know almost every big lawyer in New York. Who the hell are you?

DUVALL: (As Tom Hagen) I have a special practice. I handle one client. Now you have my number. I'll wait for your call. By the way, I admire your pictures very much.

GROSS: It's interesting. You know, "The Godfather" films are such, like, operatic movies with, you know, people playing gangsters...

DUVALL: Yeah.

GROSS: ...Who are given to grand displays of emotion and violence. And you're the one in the movie, the legal adviser, whose job is to advise to be discrete...

DUVALL: Right.

GROSS: ...To tone everything down.

DUVALL: Right.

GROSS: So in a way, you're playing a very opposite type of personality than all the other personalities in the film.

DUVALL: Yeah. Well, it was a pretty interesting character in that he was an adopted son plus this legal advisor. So therefore, as an actor and as a character, you really can't cross the line. You're kind of an outsider, but yet you're not an outsider. I was - I really enjoyed the part. I mean, those first two "Godfathers" - that's about as good as you can get filmmaking-wise, I think.

GROSS: I agree.

DUVALL: Francis was in top form, although, as you say, maybe a touch they romanticize the organized crime to a point. But it was such good filmmaking. You can excuse that.

GROSS: Do you have any favorite scenes in "The Godfather" films?

DUVALL: Well, there were a lot of them I liked, you know? I mean, the one with Michael Gazzo in "Godfather II" where I have to tell him he has to, you know, slit his wrists. That was - I enjoyed that a lot, that scene. And the scene where I had to tell Brando that Sonny died in "Godfather I" - that was nice. And there are other scenes I liked a lot, too, but those kind of come to mind very quickly.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE GODFATHER")

MARLON BRANDO: (As Don Vito Corleone) My wife is crying upstairs. I hear cars coming to the house. Consigliore of mine, I think you should tell your Don what everyone seems to know.

DUVALL: (As Tom Hagen) I didn't tell Mama anything. I was about to come up and wake you just now and tell you.

BRANDO: (As Don Vito Corleone) But you needed a drink first.

DUVALL: (As Tom Hagen) Yeah.

BRANDO: (As Don Vito Corleone) And now you've had your drink.

DUVALL: (As Tom Hagen) They shot Sonny on the causeway. He's dead.

GROSS: You worked with Francis Ford Coppola again on "Apocalypse Now."

DUVALL: Right. Right.

GROSS: And in "Apocalypse Now," you are Colonel Kilgore...

DUVALL: Right.

GROSS: ...Famous for the line...

DUVALL: I love the smell of napalm in the morning. Is that the one?

GROSS: That's the one.

DUVALL: Smells like victory. Yeah.

GROSS: Yeah.

DUVALL: Yeah, that was a wonderful line. People come up to me and quote it to me and say it like it's such an in thing between just me and them and like they're the only ones that ever thought of it. But that happens with everybody the same way.

GROSS: Did you get the script and say - well, first of all, was that line in the script? Or is that something that you...

DUVALL: Yeah. No, that was in there. And I think the part was offered to somebody else, and they turned it down. And I said to Francis, I know the part's written for a bigger guy - real tall, big guy, rugged. But, you know, I'll just say once. I think maybe I could do the part, and I'll put in my plea. And he gave it to me. So it was enjoyable. I was a lovely part, and I enjoyed playing it very much.

GROSS: Why did you want to play it a lot? This is another part that I'm sure your father was thinking, hope nobody thinks this is based on me.

DUVALL: Right. No. He knows. He knows. I think he never - he always kind of just shook his head, I think, most of the time. It's like my uncle in Montana was a rancher. I wish he had lived to see "Lonesome Dove" because that's my favorite of all. And when he saw "The Godfather," he was hard of hearing, my uncle. He said, I'd rather see a good Western. You know, he piped out in the theater, you know, middle of Montana there. But, you know, my dad - he was -I think he was proud, you know? He never said a lot - mother, too.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "APOCALYPSE NOW")

DUVALL: (As Bill Kilgore) You smell that? You smell that?

SAM BOTTOMS: (As Lance Johnson) What?

DUVALL: (As Bill Kilgore) Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world spells like that.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Come on. Move. Move. Move. Move.

DUVALL: (As Bill Kilgore) I love the smell of napalm in the morning. That smell, you know, that gasoline smell - the whole hill smelled like victory.

GROSS: So when you saw the line in the film, I love the smell of napalm in the morning, did you say to yourself, a classic line? People will be repeating this back to me.

DUVALL: No, I didn't think of that. I didn't think that - I didn't think of it that way. I wasn't sure. You know, I mean, sometimes you're not so aware of that, although you like lines like that.

GROSS: Did you do a lot of different line readings on that?

DUVALL: The one that was predominant was Jimmy Keene, a friend of mine who played a small part in that from Buffalo. I made him call me Mr. Duvall for a year 'cause that was our relationship in the movie 'cause, you know - but we're all on a first-name basis. But he said, now, how do you do this? And he was watching me. And he did great imitation, was always doing imitations. So the final dress rehearsal before we filmed this, we were always doing Brando imitations. So I said, I love the smell of napalm in the morning. I paused, and I said, smells like (imitating Marlon Brando) victory.

GROSS: (Laughter).

DUVALL: My Brando - he couldn't believe I would do that, you know? So then he began doing Brando imitations. So then when Brando wanted $100,000 to do six lines of the censored stuff for the censored version of - the TV version of "The Godfather" and they wouldn't pay him, they got Jimmy Keene from Buffalo for $200 to do Brando, of course.

GROSS: Oh, really?

DUVALL: Yeah. So those imitations started in the Philippines, and Jimmy got - because of those imitations, blossomed into the guy that would do the censored version for Brando.

GROSS: Hey. They could have saved a lot of trouble with Brando in "Apocalypse Now," I guess.

DUVALL: I suppose. Yeah. Well, Jimmy was the guy that was there that told me all these wild stories after I left. See; I did the second half of my part first and then, six months later, came back into the first half. It was strange the way I had to go do another job 'cause they got so bogged down with weather and with different actors and approaches and so forth. It took a long time to complete that film.

GROSS: We're listening to my 1996 interview with actor Robert Duvall. We'll hear more of the interview after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA PERFORMANCE OF WAGNER'S "RIDE OF THE VALKYRIES")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my 1996 interview with Robert Duvall as we continue our classic films and movie icon series.

It must have been really different working with Coppola on "The Godfather" movies and working with him on "Apocalypse Now."

DUVALL: Yeah. Well, you see; I had worked with Francis in "The Rain People," as I had said. And he was...

GROSS: And that was in the late '60s.

DUVALL: ...Kind of a moody guy. I didn't quite get a handle on Francis, but then I gained a tremendous amount of respect for him because on "Godfather I," we started out, said, OK, it's Francis again. He's not saying much - little moody, you know, the way he is. He's a real - he never comes - I want to write a book someday called "The Rushes Are Great" because everybody protects everybody by saying the rushes are great. Francis is one of the only guys that comes out of the cutting room with a long face, and maybe that's why he's so good in that he isn't always thrilled, you know?

But I gained a lot of respect for him 'cause in "Godfather I," physically, they had an understudy director following him around in case he failed to fire him and take over. And I think the first AD was the best friend of that would-be hopeful director. That was - that's quite a lousy thing to do to a director. And I gained a lot of respect for Francis for working under that pressure.

GROSS: When you were young, Brando was one of your heroes, right?

DUVALL: Yeah, I think so. I mean, he was quite a phenom. I mean, there were others, too, but he - and then you have you grow away from somebody's influence and find your own way.

GROSS: So what was it like to work with him when he was much older? He'd physically changed. It wasn't, I think, a particularly good period for him, especially during...

DUVALL: Well, no, in "The Godfather," he was very - he was rather trim, yeah.

GROSS: In "The Godfather," but yeah. Right, right, right.

DUVALL: And when I first worked with him in, well, "Apocalypse" - yeah, I didn't really - I wasn't really there when he worked.

GROSS: Right.

DUVALL: I worked with him first in "The Chase," way back, and, you know, the first day he called me into his dressing room, and we talked about the part. I said, oh, to my wife, this is going to be great, we're going to be like brothers who had a great rapport, and he never spoke to me again for eight weeks. I couldn't - I wasn't quite used to that lifestyle, somebody not speaking to you at the beginning of a day, but that's the way he is, I guess. But no, I was respectful and admired him and enjoyed working with him. And as I say, in the in "Apocalypse Now," he came into the jungle with his baby blue Mercedes, driving down the jungle. You know, after I had left, and then when I came back, he'd finished, you know, So, so I didn't get to work with him during his heavy period. I guess - who was it? Picasso had his blue period, his this period, his that period - Brando had his thin period, now his heavy period.

GROSS: So tell me. When you were young and getting started in acting, what were your expectations? What did you think would come of your career?

DUVALL: Well, you know, maybe I was innocent, and maybe innocence is not the same as naive, maybe it is. I always felt that somehow I would fit in. I went to New York feeling I would be a stage actor. I didn't think a lot about movies. I thought about them, but I wasn't sure. I just figured I was going to work. I didn't know how, but I figured it would happen. And when I got one of the worst reviews anybody could ever get. I went back to Virginia for a while, and then I came back again. My friend Ulu Grosbard - then we had done "A View From The Bridge," and we did it again off-Broadway, and it was a wonderful production with Jon Voight, Dusty (ph) Hoffman was assistant stage manager, Susan Anspach, Ray (ph) Bieri, you know, Richie (ph) Castellano - it was a wonderful production. And that helped launch my - getting more into film and TV, you know.

GROSS: So, if you don't mind my asking, what did that terrible review say about you?

DUVALL: I'm going to tell you exactly what it said.

GROSS: (Laughter) You still remember?

DUVALL: It said, Shaw has invented some impossible young men in his plays, but never one so revolting as the romantic young interest in this one. And the character is made even less palatable by Robert Duvall, whose spine tends toward a figure S, whose diction is flannel-coated and whose simpering expressions are moronic. Now, that's a pretty bad review.

GROSS: Yeah.

DUVALL: And the other paper likened me to Liberace so I had to get off the...

GROSS: (Laughter) Liberace?

DUVALL: Yeah, I had to get off the bus. I was physically ill.

GROSS: What was the connection to Liberace?

DUVALL: I don't know. Maybe I played him a little effete. I don't know what it was. It was...

GROSS: (Laughter).

DUVALL: It was a guy from the Actors' Studio. I don't know. He had us lying down doing sense memory before we were doing George Bernard Shaw. I said, we should be telling jokes not lying on the floor for sense memory. It was - the whole approach was wrong. It was a disaster. But, you know, at least it was an experience, at least.

GROSS: Well, Robert Duvall, I want to thank you so much for talking with us.

DUVALL: Well, thank you. I enjoyed it.

GROSS: My interview with Robert Duvall was recorded in 1996. Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, we continue our classic films and movie icons series. We'll feature interviews from our archive with two actors who started as child stars - Jodie Foster and Molly Ringwald. Foster became famous for her 1976 films "Freaky Friday" and "Taxi Driver." Recently, she starred in the latest season of "True Detective" and was nominated for an Oscar for her role in "Nyad." Ringwald was in the sitcoms "Diff'rent Strokes" and "The Facts Of Life" and became famous for her roles in the teen films "Sixteen Candles," "The Breakfast Club" and "Pretty In Pink." Most recently, she was in "Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans." I hope you'll join us.

(SOUNDBITE OF BERNARD HERRMANN'S "I STILL CAN'T SLEEP/THEY CANNOT TOUCH HER (BETSY'S THEME)")

GROSS: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Heidi Saman, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi and Joe Wolfram. Special thanks to NPR+ producer Nick Anderson. Our digital media producers are Molly Seavy-Nesper and Sabrina Siewert. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. Our co-host is Tonya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.

(SOUNDBITE OF BERNARD HERRMANN'S "I STILL CAN'T SLEEP/THEY CANNOT TOUCH HER (BETSY'S THEME)")

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